The Call
by fearlessgurl283
Summary: Another set of 100 drabbles, this time not for 100 consecutive days and instead for a specific pairing--Caspian/Susan. Preview for the 5th drabble: It is this feeling that she is finally asking the right question--just at the moment it is too late...
1. Pretend

**Title**: The Call  
**Chapter Title**: Pretend (001/100)  
**Word count**: 201  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: angst, great sadness**  
****Notes**: I had just read some heart-wrenching Susan/Caspian fics when I thought of this. It came unexpected—and at the wrong time (I_ still_ have homework to finish…)—but it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it, so here you go. I _promise _you that all 100 of these drabbles won't be this sad. Some will, but not all. I _am_ a hopeless romantic and a sucker for happy endings, after all.

Oh and welcome to my second set of 100 drabbles. I definitely won't be writing one every day this time, however. And I cannot believe I talked myself into doing this again…

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Pretend**

_It is just so much easier to forget…_

Those dear eyes lose their usual shine faster than when she imagined the scene in her head, and for an instant in time she wishes to take back what she said. Immediately her peacekeeping and loving nature provides the words to patch everything up, to make it all better again—the words are already almost reality in her mind.

_I didn't mean it, Lucy, when I said…_That you're stupid to believe._ I didn't mean to…_Break your young and so easily filled heart_. I was just…just……_Just trying to protect my own frail heart.

But she is not as strong, nor as innocent and carefree, as her sister—and she cannot afford to lose any more pieces of her already badly patched-up heart. _Memories that had been carefully packed away and forgotten in the back recesses of her mind are already pouring in like the summer rain with that one word of a not-quite forgotten land, memories that were better left alone in peace._

She leaves without saying anything more, turning away before she can see _him_ in those heartbroken eyes.

…_than it is to remember_.


	2. Expectations

**Title**: The Call  
**Chapter Title**: Expectations (002/100)  
**Word count**: 446  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: lots and lots of thoughts and rhetorical questions**  
****Notes**: This one took _a lot_ longer to write—hopefully it all makes sense in the end. Some inspiration for the piece came from the theological argument in "The Brothers Karamazov". Kudos to those who know what I'm talking about.

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Expectations**

She has been expecting it—_waiting for it, even_—all morning and afternoon. It is only when the sun starts to fall in the sky that he calls them over to his side, his gentle eyes gazing patiently at them. If anything, this only serves to further her growing impatience and irritation—uneasy feelings that have not left her since the end of the battle. Her brother catches her gaze immediately, his eyes showing the same fear that she feels inside of her, the terrible dreading of the bad news that they both know (have known for awhile) is coming shortly to them._ This time will change everything._

He says what they have been expecting simply, calmly. It is only a statement to him, a mere fact. And they, they are merely the pawns on the giant chessboard of Narnia that he has constructed so carefully, so perfectly.

So it is a shock to them all—even herself—when she holds his gaze firmly and refuses to let this argument go un-debated, her questions coming rapid-fire after his simple statement.

For it has never been in her nature to question commonly held beliefs or the way of life, or to be stubborn and hold fast to her beliefs even when they are challenged, like her sister and older brother. Nor does she possess the great amount of logic of her younger brother, though she sometimes surprises herself in that area. She is known as Susan the Gentle for a reason, of course. But there is something about this second time in Narnia that makes her not willing to accept the position of a pawn that the great lion has given her.

_Why,_ she asks, _is this our fate?_ _Why is this the end? How are you so certain that we are meant to never return? Why can't we stay—why did you ever bring us here if we were only to be left back in our own world after you were done using us?_ She leaves her most important question unasked, knowing that she will never get a satisfactory answer and wanting him to see it in her eyes and answer it anyway all the same.

It does not surprise her when he does not answer, and instead waits patiently for the question he knows will come. He is right.

_Why didn't we get to choose our future?_

It is not long after they have left Narnia when she realizes that she wasn't talking about the four of them anymore. She turns away before her siblings can see the tears falling silently down her cheeks.

She is a queen, after all.


	3. Connected

**Title**: The Call  
**Chapter Title**: Connected (003/100)  
**Word count**: 207  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: it's a little abstract and vague at first for a reason—why it's like this will make sense after you've finished it **  
****Notes**: A curious image that's been in and out of my head today. Not quite fluff, but definitely happier than the angst I've been writing lately. xD

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Connected**

At night he dreams about her again.

She is not so far away for him not to be able to see that she is in that regal blue and white dress again—the one that makes her look like a queen—and he can't but wonder a second time if there's special meaning behind it.

This may very well come from the fact that everything_—every little gesture, piece of clothing and spoken word—_contains a hidden meaning crucial to life in the Telmarine court. Suspicion, after all, is only natural after living there for so many years.

But…somehow it's not like that.

It's a curious _feeling_ that he gets about the dress more than anything. Like he hasn't seen the last of it—despite the feeling of _finality_ he cannot but help find associated with it—or of her.

He finds this to be a largely pleasant feeling, actually.

Despite this, he cannot shake the nagging thought that something is just not quite _right_ about this whole scene, a thought that slipped his mind yesterday once he woke up. Only after he's fully awake the next morning does it finally come to mind.

He's never actually _met _her.


	4. Ponderings

**Title**: The Call  
**Chapter Title**: Ponderings (004/100)  
**Word count**: 170  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: Meh, short and kind of emotionless. :/ It's exploring the mind process of one character, mostly.**  
****Notes**: This drabble is a kind of sequel to my last drabble, "Connected". Take that as you will. :3

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Ponderings**

_No! No…that's alright…You're just…you're just not exactly what I expected…_

After all he's been through in the past few days, he really shouldn't be surprised. He shouldn't be looking like a trapped squirrel, glancing back and forth between _him_ and_ her_ every blink of an eye. He shouldn't be wondering desperately if he's walked into another world, when he already did that a few days ago with his trip into the forest. Most of all, he really _shouldn't_ let his mouth get the best of him.

But he just can't _help_ it. Everything happened so fast…and he has to be certain he isn't just seeing things, make sure that she's not just a figment of his obviously over-active imagination. For it's one thing when extinct populations no longer become extinct, especially when they turned out to never have been extinct in the beginning.

It's another thing completely when dreams become reality.


	5. Choice

**Title**: The Call  
**Chapter Title**: Choice (005/100)  
**Word count**: 355  
**Rating**: G  
**Warnings**: More angst, sorry. D:**  
****Notes**: This is another image that I just _could not_ get out of my head, as much as I tried. It needed to be written. I'm not sure if anyone else has thought of this—it is just one of the _many_ takes I have on this…_choice_, this action. Also, I must note that this is most likely an AU from the other drabbles I've written. Whether or not it fits with movie canon is up to you…

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Choice**

_There must be something I can do…_

The words fall from her lips before she can stop them, words that sounded so hollow and desperate even in her head that she cannot believe what she is hearing, much less the fact that _she_ is the one voicing such thoughts aloud. She instantly bites on her lower lip, a bad habit that she _knows_ she didn't have when the last time they were here.

The great lion gazes at her so sorrowfully that it is almost condescending, as if she is the foolish student that dared to ask about something she can't possibly ever understand. She knows instinctively that he will just tell her _no, there is nothing she can possibly do_—and it is this that makes her persist, this feeling that she is_ finally_ asking the right question…just at the moment it is too late.

_I would do anything_…and she knows before she has even finished that it is the completely wrong thing to say.

_You do not know what you are offering, _he murmurs_, for in doing so, you will get what you want—but at a terrible price_…

Later she will pretend like she simply accepted the fate he bestowed upon her, if only to protect those she loves. _It is, after all, a burden that she must bear alone._ And she is a good enough actress that they all believe her, right down to the one she is doing this for, right down to the one that would have never let her choose what she did if he had known.

She doesn't allow herself to glance at him one last time before they leave, knowing she will only cause both of them more pain if she does.

_You will find someone else, _she silently promises_. And she will not break your heart a thousand times before you are even twenty, or treat you just as cruelly as those you once considered family, flat-out lying straight to your face._

_Most of all, she will certainly not curse you to be bound to her for eternity, childless_.


End file.
